Foreign Exchange Student Helps Scouts

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JEFFERSON CITY - A Mokane, MO Cub Scout group earned its Culture and Language belt loop with help from a college student from Pakistan.

Asad Abdul Muhammad is a foreign exchange student who attends Lincoln University.He studies accounting and he is also a Boy Scout.

He joined the Boy Scouts when he was six and has been an active member ever since.

Room 114, in Martin Luther King Hall held 15 scouts from Pack number 255, their families and friends of Muhammad.

Muhammad helped the Mokane Cub Scouts by teaching them numbers and words from his native language, Urdu. Children eagerly raised their hands and asked him to translate words from English to Urdu. They asked for translations of cow, smile, and clock. They also asked for translations for their names, but Muhammad kindly said, "It would just be the same in my language, sorry."

The Cub Scouts also had to fulfill the following three requirements to earn their belt loop:

1) With parental permission, talk with someone who grew up in a different country and find out what it is like, and how it is different from their own experience.

2) Learn 10 words in a different language.

3) Play two games that originated in another country.

He also showed sports that were popular in his country and compared them to American sports.

Parents, family and friends looked on as as he recounted stories of his childhood involvement with scouting.He told the group about how his pack made a chair and to pass the requirement, he needed his brother to sit in it. "My brother is quite large. He sat in it and it held up, so we passed." said Muhammad laughingly.

He also showed pictures of his scout group and passed out prizes to the scouts as they earned their belt loop. To celebrate their latest accomplishment Muhammad and the scouts went out afterwards for Chinese at the Dragon Kitchen.